Fark that, the Job Creators will have their own private airfields where they can fly over all those crumbling bridges, subby. Just because you're too lazy or too much of a moocher to earn your way to the good life doesn't mean you can steal other people's money.

We live in a democracy, that means it's only important when enough people think it is important, or to put it another way: after a few more major bridge collapses and perhaps an engaging story of a child trapped under all the debris, the masses will howl for blood and something finally maybe will get done.That or Glen Beck and Rush Limburger will blame Obama and it will be forgotten while everyone blames everyone else.

Bill_Wick's_Friend:Has anyone considered making building bridges and repairing dams a military operation?

Cuz they're pretty well-funded and they have the manpower and nobody on either side of the aisle has a problem allocating a few more trillion dollars to the military budget.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:-Is the Nation's number one federal provider of outdoor recreation.-Is the Nation's environmental engineer.-Owns and operates more than 600 dams.-Operates and maintains 12,000 miles of commercial inland navigation channels.-Dredges more than 200 million cubic yards of construction and maintenance dredge material annually.-Maintains 926 coastal, Great Lakes and inland harbors.-Restores, creates, enhances or preserves tens of thousands of acres of wetlands annually under the Corps' Regulatory Program.-Provides a total water supply storage capacity of 329.2 million acre-feet in major Corps lakes.-Owns and operates 24 percent of the U.S. hydropower capacity or 3 percent of the total U.S. electric capacity.-Supports Army and Air Force installations.-Provides technical and construction support to more than 100 countries.-Manages an Army military construction program between 2006 and 2013 totaling approximately $44.6 billion - the largest construction effort since World War II.-Researches and develops technologies to protect the nation's environment and enhance quality of life.

Dear everyone who thought it was a good idea to spend 6 trillion dollars on two wars, fark you. Just imagine everyone if we had invested that money in our infastructure, or science, or both. Nope, not as important as getting a boner from blowing up brown people or whatever it is that people on the right find so appealing about war.

bbfreak:Dear everyone who thought it was a good idea to spend 6 trillion dollars on two wars, fark you. Just imagine everyone if we had invested that money in our infastructure, or science, or both. Nope, not as important as getting a boner from blowing up brown people or whatever it is that people on the right find so appealing about war.

It was "invested" in oil.So we have that going for us.Which is farked, 'cause the oil companies are not sharing.

bbfreak:Dear everyone who thought it was a good idea to spend 6 trillion dollars on two wars, fark you. Just imagine everyone if we had invested that money in our infastructure, or science, or both. Nope, not as important as getting a boner from blowing up brown people or whatever it is that people on the right find so appealing about war.

yes, imagine the Nirvana where all the money blown on wars would certainly have been spent wisely, right? Like it was done in the halcyon, non-pork years before that, right? Your faith in Congress is as refreshing as it is naive.

I put this solely on the farking Baby Boomers. Those leaches didn't put a dime back into infrastructure for decades, and now serve as the basis of the god damn teabaggers that fight tooth and nail against every single tax increase to pay for shiat. Frankly, the sooner they die off, the better.

My home state is trying to replace a four lane floating bridge built back in '63 with a new six lane floating bridge. Inflation adjusted, the new bridge will cost over ten times as much as the original bridge.

Most people seem to be onboard with replacing infrastructure, until they start seeing the bill. The costs of doing work (adjusted for inflation) seems to be significantly higher than what it would have cost 50 years ago. Granted, bridges these days are much more structurally sound, but how much extra did the improved materials and engineering work actually cost?

I'd really like to know if labor and material costs have skyrocketed that much, or if regulation has now made it to where an army of consultants and engineers are needed to deal with hundreds of bits of red tape.

The disingenuous bullshiatting in this thread is farking hilarious. None of you Fark Independents wanted to spend money on infrastructure back in 2009. I was there, I remember it well. The GOP completely monkeywrenched the stimulus because they wanted to extend the recession. And when the stimulus actually passed you were all mealy-mouthing about nothing being "shovel-ready" and hahaha wasn't it a huge boondoggle. Well, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it's not my fault you live in states that pissed away the stimulus. During 2009 and 2010 I travelled throughout New England and every single state was repaving highways, reconstructing bridges, and actually putting shovels to work. I got a rationalized intersection, new sidewalks, and flood controls right near my house. I was completely satisfied with what my tax dollars bought.

Now I come into this thread and I hear the exact same voices claiming that the Democrats were against spending on infrastructure because of reasons and the Feminazis stopped money from being spent because white guyz and welfare cheats stole all the bridge money for their Obamaphones. What EVER. Kindly go fark yourselves with a cactus, kthxbye.

MrSteve007:Torqueknot: We live in a democracy, that means it's only important when enough people think it is important

Nope. We live in a democratically elected republic. We elect representation who we feel will have views that will best serve our interests.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we've turned our system into a government that is more closely represented by corporations than by individual citizens.

Surely the answer is for an even greater concentration of power to the federal state. That could never backfire thank god the D.C. metro area is full of poor people and not the primary example of money following power.

theorellior:The disingenuous bullshiatting in this thread is farking hilarious. None of you Fark Independents wanted to spend money on infrastructure back in 2009. I was there, I remember it well. The GOP completely monkeywrenched the stimulus because they wanted to extend the recession. And when the stimulus actually passed you were all mealy-mouthing about nothing being "shovel-ready" and hahaha wasn't it a huge boondoggle. Well, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it's not my fault you live in states that pissed away the stimulus. During 2009 and 2010 I travelled throughout New England and every single state was repaving highways, reconstructing bridges, and actually putting shovels to work. I got a rationalized intersection, new sidewalks, and flood controls right near my house. I was completely satisfied with what my tax dollars bought.

Now I come into this thread and I hear the exact same voices claiming that the Democrats were against spending on infrastructure because of reasons and the Feminazis stopped money from being spent because white guyz and welfare cheats stole all the bridge money for their Obamaphones. What EVER. Kindly go fark yourselves with a cactus, kthxbye.

that's quite the poutrage in a thread where most people agree with you.

Dinjiin:My home state is trying to replace a four lane floating bridge built back in '63 with a new six lane floating bridge. Inflation adjusted, the new bridge will cost over ten times as much as the original bridge.

Most people seem to be onboard with replacing infrastructure, until they start seeing the bill. The costs of doing work (adjusted for inflation) seems to be significantly higher than what it would have cost 50 years ago. Granted, bridges these days are much more structurally sound, but how much extra did the improved materials and engineering work actually cost?

I'd really like to know if labor and material costs have skyrocketed that much, or if regulation has now made it to where an army of consultants and engineers are needed to deal with hundreds of bits of red tape.

George Washington appointed the first engineer officers of the Army on June 16, 1775, during the American Revolution, and engineers have served in combat in all subsequent American wars. The Army established the Corps of Engineers as a separate, permanent branch on March 16, 1802, and gave the engineers responsibility for founding and operating the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Since then the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has responded to changing defense requirements and played an integral part in the development of the country. Throughout the 19th century, the Corps built coastal fortifications, surveyed roads and canals, eliminated navigational hazards, explored and mapped the Western frontier, and constructed buildings and monuments in the Nation's capital.

From the beginning, many politicians wanted the Corps to contribute to both military construction and works "of a civil nature." Throughout the 19th century, the Corps supervised the construction of coastal fortifications and mapped much of the American West with the Corps of Topographical Engineers, which enjoyed a separate existence for 25 years (1838-1863). The Corps of Engineers also constructed lighthouses, helped develop jetties and piers for harbors, and carefully mapped the navigation channels.

Oh, and Article I, Section 8... for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings